Friday, October 29, 2010

The Gift of Going Second!



This short video demonstrates an amazing principle of leadership. I encourage you to take a moment and watch it! I love the notion of giving people the gift of going second. Often the person who leads out is the one who gets to be criticized, judged, ridiculed, laughed at.... The reality is that all too often, many of us want to embrace the same concepts or ideologies. Many of us want to walk the same path, but we're too afraid of the repercussions. The one who goes first, gives the rest of us the gift of going second and mitigates the tension and fear of going first.

4 comments:

patrick voo said...

cool!

interesting observation at 1:14 - "new followers emulate the followers, not the leader" - does this mean that every movement inherently sows the seed of its own degradation? a photocopy of the photocopy?

Joseph said...

Patrick, that's certainly one way to look at it, especially when we're dealing with leaders who hold back some of the "tricks of the trade" so that their protege doesn't surpass them.

On the other hand, that may be the reason why it's imperative that we introduce people to Jesus only and not our own misplaced ideas of what leadership is. If each one follows Jesus, they are guaranteed not to go wrong.

Finally, who's to say that someone in the "downline" doesn't turn out to be a better "dancer" than the original leader, therebye actually improving rather than degrading the skill. :)

patrick said...

agreed joseph! i thought that it was a provocative comment embedded in the video, but for us the reality is that our movement is really predicated on followers helping subsequent followers do their best to emulate the leader.

the other difference being that while dancing guy can only model behaviour for his followers, the Spirit of Jesus can (and will) co-exist with those who align themselves with Him.

and yes, there are always better dancers than ourselves, although i prefer to think of the beauty and diversity of 'differently-abled' dancers :)

Joseph said...

Well said Patrick! :)